Thought Leadership With A side Order Of Wit: Disrupting Healthcare Consumerism

Post navigation

Do you need to fire Ferguson?

I was listening to Imus the other day as he was interviewing the famous promoter, Jerry Weintraub. The promoter relayed a story about one of his clients, John Denver. Mr. Denver was constantly complaining about a number of things on one of his European tours, and he demanded the promoter come speak with him. Here’s a replay of the conversation.

“Yes. Well, he was in Europe, and he was on tour. And everything was wrong. He hated everything. He hated the venues. He hated – the airplanes were no good. The sound systems were no good. Everything was no good. And he said to me, you know, I’m going to fire you; everything is wrong here. I said, yeah, I know, I know.

I sat down with him; I said, John, everything is going to be fine. He said, why? Why? I said, because I fired Ferguson. He said, why did you fire Ferguson? Why? What does firing him – going to do? I said, he’s been responsible for all the things that you’re troubled by: the hotels, the sound system, the venues, da, da, da, da. And he said, it’s going to be OK now? I said, yes, I’m putting other people in. Great.

And that evening, Denver and I went out to have something to eat. At dinner, I said to him, John, you know, I feel really terrible about firing Ferguson. He said, why? I said, because it’s not like you and it’s not like me. And John Denver said to me, I agree with you; it’s not like us. What can we do to help the guy? It’s really not like me. I got to help him. I said, I’ll put him in another area in the company. He’ll be fine. We’ll take good care of him. He said, that’s great, I feel so much better. Of course, there never was a Ferguson.”

Sometimes you need to shake things up a bit. Do you need to fire Ferguson?